


Mermaid Musings

by Torchiclove



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, Misgendering, Trans Beau, beauregard wanted to be a mermaid when she grew up and that's a fact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 13:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13718586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Torchiclove/pseuds/Torchiclove
Summary: Beau doesn't appreciate reading until she finds a book about mermaids, and she discovers more than she bargained for.





	Mermaid Musings

“I was kind of obsessed with, like, underwater life and mermaids, so I’ve read a few books.”

Beau says that with a straight face, because it’s a pretty innocuous interest. A lot of little girls love mermaids. But man, just mentioning it takes her _back_.

It takes her back to being ten years old and always under her parents’ thumb. It was mostly her dad, because he was worried about her. Not actually worried about _her_ , worried about the version of her he wanted to see grow up in the world.

Worried about his son.

Beauregard had perhaps said some dreadfully concerning things regarding her place in the world, and he was always trying to steer her down the right path. Grow up, learn the business, be pleasant and charming, and stop getting in fistfights with other kids. Beau was interested in none of those things.

She _had_ become interested, however, in mermaids.

Her dad was always trying to get her to read more, boring shit about history or manners, but by chance she happened to pick up a book about marine life. Something laying around, forgotten, in the family’s personal library. 

She was intrigued, at first, by something that wasn’t the usual dry, uppity tone of the books her dad made her read. The descriptions of the marine life (of which there were detailed sketches) weren’t laced with jargon; they were exciting, carrying in them stories from the researcher and a genuine love for the subject at hand. 

She made it through the book at record pace, but there was one section that really caught her eye: the mermaids.

It started with a drawing, beautifully done, of a pudgy woman with a fish’s tail, dark blue skin, and fins growing from her body. She twisted, carefree, through the waves, face caught in a smile.

Something clicked deep in Beauregards heart, something primal, as she set eyes on the image, and she spent a few minutes just staring. Finally, she moved on to the caption. _Not much is known about the merfolk, colloquially called mermaids…_

She read the short entry over and over again, didn’t even bother to flip through the rest of the book. Her dad saw her reading there, enraptured, in the study, and he cracked a smile.

“Finally taking an interest?” He asked wryly, his voice booming, grating. 

She looked up with bright blue eyes, eyes that hadn’t yet learned not to trust, eyes that believed her parents really had her best interests at heart. “I found what I wanna do,” she said, smiling brightly, because her dad had wanted that for _so long_. She flipped the book over and pointed to the picture, “I wanna be a mermaid.”

He cocked his head and smiled faintly, let out a condescending chuckle. “That’s funny, son,” he said, and he ruffled her hair, “But you’d be a Merrow.”

Beau watched him walk off, crestfallen. She halfheartedly flipped to the next page, and there she saw the Merrow entry. Horrifying, ugly things, with long slippery tails and sharp claws.

_Once thought to be the male counterpart to merfolk…_

She didn’t continue past there, just chucked the book at the wall, satisfied the at the dull _thud_ it made, landing face down and open. She huffed, biting her lip to hold back tears, because the _one time_ she’d actually liked something, it was _wrong_. Everything she did was always wrong to him, everything she wanted.

She simmered for a few minutes before walking over to the book and picking it up, smoothing out the creases from where the pages bent. She ripped the Merrow page out and balled it up, gave it a good toss across the room, and continued her reading.

 

Things only spiralled from there. She searched the family shelves for more books—marine lore, compilations of known creatures, even fictional stories about them—and found a few. There was another encyclopedia-like tome about fish that failed to mention mermaids, a firsthand account of a kraken attack (as told by a T. Darrington), and a general creature lorebook which had a page and a half dedicated to merfolk.

It only lasted her so long, those three books with barely anything she wanted. The kraken book was cool—a sick fight, someone totally died, merfolk were briefly mentioned as part of the exposition—and the lorebook was filled with interesting factoids. But it wasn’t _enough_. It was scraps. Beau didn’t settle for scraps. 

She did what any sensible kid would do in her situation: she went to the nearest bookstore, browsed their collection, and stole something. It was easy enough.

What she found was a work of fiction, what she’d later recognize as a trashy romance novel with material definitely not suited for a ten year old. But she looked back on it fondly, even though it was bad. 

It was about a human man, a salty sailor, and his passionate romance with a young, beautiful mermaid, cast out of her home because of her love for surface dwellers. Ten year old Beau found it tragic, cried at the ending where the man drowned in attempt to live in the deep with his lover, but there was still something _off_.

She loved the mermaid’s character dearly, still remembers her name (Sinevra), though the man’s is lost to her. Beau, now, knows the exact ins and outs of why parts of that novel did not appeal to her. Beau then had a lot of learning to do.

_Learning_ , in the form of continuing her mermaid phase to its logical conclusion. She acquired as much as she could, through means both legal and not, and something finally clicked when she read a novel (this time, intended for a slightly younger audience) about a mermaid girl growing up.

She felt an intense connection with the main character, dreamed about being her, dreamed about being her friend (once dreamed of floating with her in the waters, holding hands, blushing).

And she finally realized what she’d been wanting the whole time, what drew her in to this obsession, and it was that she wanted to be a girl. A simple truth that was, once realized, liberating and terrifying.

It was thousand microscopic discrepancies all brought to light at once: the gnawing dislike of her body, the misdirected envy, the twinge of annoyance every time her father called her _son_. A simple mistake, a mislabeling, something that could be fixed with a few clarifications.

It’s almost laughable how simple she thought it’d be. 

She told her parents quite frankly soon after she’d realized it; told them she was their daughter, a girl, she.

“Beauregard,” her father said, face tight with worry that would so easily break to anger, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Beau snaps out of the memory like a bad dream, now that all the pleasant nostalgia is gone, replaced by that deep void in her stomach, just like the one she felt when she was ten years old and realized she was trapped in a life she never wanted. When she bit her lip and cursed at her father and ran to her room and cried.

It was not the last time she would have that conversation. Sadness, despair, all that would replace itself with hard anger. It’s a fight she would eventually win, but she couldn’t have known that then. And yet.

She looks out now to her new friends, Caleb still fussing over Fjord and Molly absentmindedly licking the remnants of saltwater off his hand, and she can’t help but feel a burst of triumphant energy. Sometimes she almost doesn’t believe it, but after all those years, she has won.

**Author's Note:**

> I continue to be trans and self-indulgent part two: mermaid boogaloo. Beau finds out she's trans just like the rest of us: by projecting onto fictional characters. You didn't think I'd just let that mermaid line slide, did you?


End file.
